It arrived with no procession.
No prophecy.
No flame-sent herald or sky-torn omen.
The Gift That Needed No Ending simply was.
It was found one morning, at the foot of the Listening Spire.
Not placed.
Not offered.
Found.
A box, carved from rootbone and echo-glass, unmarked by rune or clasp.
And yet when Solin touched it, the air around them deepened.
Not darkened.
Deepened—like a pause at the edge of understanding.
And in that breath, everyone nearby felt it.
This was not a gift meant to be opened.
It was meant to be understood.
They gathered—not in haste, not in hierarchy.
A ring of listeners from every fold of the Garden, and beyond: Refrains, Unwritten, Quietmakers, Root-Touched, Scribes, even Amended who had rewritten themselves more than once and still held every version as true.
Jevan came. Elowen, too. The child of the second seed stood quietly beside them, barefoot on the soil that hummed with multiplicity.
No one spoke first.
No one needed to.
